Immigration

Federal judge orders U.S. to bring back Nicaraguan man deported to Central African Republic

St. Paul, Minnesota • November 1, 2026 • By Press Pass USA

Editorial illustration: a federal courthouse with an airplane overhead and a traveler with a suitcase on its steps

Editorial illustration — Press Pass USA

A federal judge in St. Paul has ordered the Trump administration to arrange the return of Kenis Adalberto Lopez Gonzalez, a Nicaraguan man deported in August to the Central African Republic — a country he has never visited and to which he has no ties — after finding that immigration authorities revoked his supervised release without following their own regulations.

U.S. District Judge Jeffrey M. Bryan issued the preliminary injunction on Friday, October 30, directing the Department of Homeland Security and Immigration and Customs Enforcement to take all reasonable steps within their control to bring Lopez back to the District of Minnesota, and not to remove him from the district while the case is pending. The order sets hard deadlines: an ICE deportation officer must contact Lopez's lawyer by 11 a.m. on November 4 to begin a Significant Public Benefit Parole request, and that request and a first joint status report are due by 11 a.m. on November 6, with reports every seven days until he returns.

Lopez, 44, came to the United States in 2022 and turned himself in to immigration authorities at the southern border. The government reinstated a 2005 removal order against him, but in August 2024 an immigration judge granted him withholding of removal under the Convention Against Torture, barring his deportation to Nicaragua over the risk he would face torture there. He had been living in Minnesota and working in construction, and reports say he has no criminal record in the United States.

Agents arrested him at his home in Shakopee on January 15, 2026, during the Minnesota enforcement surge known as Operation Metro Surge. After months in detention in Texas and Louisiana, he was put on an August 28 flight to Bangui, the Central African Republic's capital, via Ghana and Sierra Leone. The court found he was never processed by Central African immigration authorities and is confined to a guarded building. The State Department rates the country Level 4, "Do Not Travel."

Judge Bryan's ruling turns on a narrower point than most challenges to third-country deportations. He found Lopez likely to win on the claim that ICE took away his supervised release in January without following its own rules, which allow re-detention only on limited grounds and require notice — and that deporting him did not fix that violation. The order does not decide whether third-country removals themselves are lawful, a question the U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to take up in December. The order also bars officers from shooting Lopez with rubber bullets or other projectiles at close range.

"ICE violated Mr. Lopez's constitutional rights, and hardly even denied it," his attorney, Simon Sandoval-Moshenberg, told Newsweek. Lopez is among more than 25,000 people deported to countries other than their home country since President Donald Trump took office in 2025, according to the Minnesota Reformer, and the Central African Republic is one of more than 30 countries that have agreed to accept third-country deportees from the United States.

Sources: MPR News (Oct 30, 2026); Newsweek (Oct 31, 2026); Minnesota Reformer (Oct 30, 2026); WCCO (Oct 30, 2026).